One evening when the window was open, and she, sitting by it, had been

watching Lestiboudois, the beadle, trimming the box, she suddenly heard

the Angelus ringing.

It was the beginning of April, when the primroses are in bloom, and a

warm wind blows over the flower-beds newly turned, and the gardens, like

women, seem to be getting ready for the summer fetes. Through the bars

of the arbour and away beyond, the river seen in the fields, meandering

through the grass in wandering curves. The evening vapours rose between

the leafless poplars, touching their outlines with a violet tint, paler

and more transparent than a subtle gauze caught athwart their branches.

In the distance cattle moved about; neither their steps nor their lowing

could be heard; and the bell, still ringing through the air, kept up its

peaceful lamentation.

With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young woman lost

themselves in old memories of her youth and school-days. She remembered

the great candlesticks that rose above the vases full of flowers on the

altar, and the tabernacle with its small columns. She would have liked

to be once more lost in the long line of white veils, marked off here

and there by the stuff black hoods of the good sisters bending over

their prie-Dieu. At mass on Sundays, when she looked up, she saw the

gentle face of the Virgin amid the blue smoke of the rising incense.

Then she was moved; she felt herself weak and quite deserted, like the

down of a bird whirled by the tempest, and it was unconsciously that she

went towards the church, included to no matter what devotions, so that

her soul was absorbed and all existence lost in it.

On the Place she met Lestivoudois on his way back, for, in order not

to shorten his day's labour, he preferred interrupting his work,

then beginning it again, so that he rang the Angelus to suit his own

convenience. Besides, the ringing over a little earlier warned the lads

of catechism hour.

Already a few who had arrived were playing marbles on the stones of the

cemetery. Others, astride the wall, swung their legs, kicking with their

clogs the large nettles growing between the little enclosure and the

newest graves. This was the only green spot. All the rest was but

stones, always covered with a fine powder, despite the vestry-broom.

The children in list shoes ran about there as if it were an enclosure

made for them. The shouts of their voices could be heard through the

humming of the bell. This grew less and less with the swinging of the

great rope that, hanging from the top of the belfry, dragged its end on

the ground. Swallows flitted to and fro uttering little cries, cut the

air with the edge of their wings, and swiftly returned to their yellow

nests under the tiles of the coping. At the end of the church a lamp was

burning, the wick of a night-light in a glass hung up. Its light from a

distance looked like a white stain trembling in the oil. A long ray of

the sun fell across the nave and seemed to darken the lower sides and

the corners.




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